Commentary

Santa’s gifts to Canada and Canadians

Commentary: A Christmas wish list for Canada

By

BillMann

VANCOUVER, B.C. (MarketWatch) — Is Santa Claus a Canadian? Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, said not long ago that he was. He even gave the jolly fat guy Canadian citizenship and granted Santa air rights to fly over Canada at any time.

Santa even has his own Canadian postal code for youngsters writing to Saint Nick: HOH 0H0.

Is the North Pole Canadian territory? Canada says it is, even though those international-law Grinches have ruled no country owns it.

That aside, it seems a good time for your Canadian correspondent to present this holiday season’s Great White North Christmas wish list of gifts I’d like Canada to get:

1) Another Canadian political leader with the character, charisma, and popularity of the NDP’s Jack Layton who, tragically, died earlier this year shortly after seeing his party become Canada’s official opposition for the first time in its 50-year history.

2) A charisma transplant for Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

3) A growing housing market for the 15th straight year — best in the western world.

4) A Stanley Cup final in a Canadian city — with no riots.

5) Submarines that actually work. (The Royal Canadian navy’s entire, if modest, fleet is currently above water — in drydock.)

6) No more “previously owned” U-boats from the British navy.

7) More Canadian tours by Will and Kate.

8) A Canadian soccer team that finally qualifies for the World Cup.

9) The hope that the rest of the new plastic Canadian bank notes will be as cool-looking as the just-issued C-note.

10) A pipeline from Alberta to B.C. to ship Canadian oil to China while Keystone-XL drags on.

11) The phasing out of the Canadian Senate, which functions better than the U.S. Senate, but which has little power. It seems as vestigial as Britain’s House of Lords.

12) Canadian exports to have more of a value-added nature than merely shipping raw commodities like logs, potash, and crude oil.

13) A surprise comeback for RIM — so it doesn’t become the next Nortel Networks.

14) A second bridge to be built — finally — between Windsor and Detroit, and for the rich guy who owns the current one to get spanked in court.

15) More American (and Canadian) tourists to visit Fort Vancouver, Wash., just across the river from Portland, where Canada’s Hudson Bay Company once had its thriving western corporate headquarters. It’s one of U.S. tourism’s best-kept secrets and is a landmark for all North American business.

16) More NHL franchises in places like Columbus and Phoenix to get relocated to Canada, where they belong and where they’d flourish. Quebec and a second Toronto team would be a good start.

17) A French-speaking coach for the Montreal Canadiens, a sports team that represents an entire culture. (Not long after new coach Randy Cunneyworth, an English-speaking Torontonian, was named to the prestigious job last week, French-speaking daily Le Journal de Montreal ran the snarky headline, “Another Loss For Cunneyworth” -- in English.)

18) The U.S. to repudiate its insulting policy of not recognizing Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. (An important one to Santa).

19) A wish for the NHL to get serious and do something about concussions and hockey fighting.

20) More Americans to discover that Canada’s real-estate market is flourishing despite having no home-mortgage-interest deduction.

21) More reasonable — or at least, more expeditious — U.S. border guards, so that Canadians can do their cross-border shopping more easily.

22) More U.S. politicians seeing Canada as more than a commodities warehouse.

23) More Tim Hortons outlets (and coffee) in the U.S.

24) More respect in Europe and elsewhere for Alberta oil — and for the innovative efforts being made by oil companies there jointly to clean up the oil sands.

25) More people to forget that Michael Buble and Justin Bieber are Canadian.

26) More U.S. networks producing TV series like the CBC’s admirable (if a bit insipid) “Little Mosque on the Prairie” that show Muslims in everyday life.

28) The continued strength of the Canadian dollar. (U.S. merchants near the border want this too!)

29) A wish that Mitt Romney will repeat his funny Top 10 statement on Letterman’s show this week: “I have no proof, but I have a feeling that Canada is planning something.” It could get him some votes in border states — like New Hampshire.

30) A “joyeux noel” to all my Quebec friends — and a holiday wish that the Habs (Montreal Canadiens) will reach the playoffs.

31) A return of the Stanley Cup to Canada.

32) More Americans visiting Canada. Those who don’t do not know what they’re missing.

33) Finally, a Boxing Day on Monday that makes Canadian retailers merry. (It’s a shopping holiday, Canada’s Black Friday.)

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